Eclectic gourmet food shop opens in Snyder

A gourmet food shop called Salt Cuisine opened on April 28 in Snyder, offering ready-to-go soups, salads, sandwiches and entrees.

Don’t get too attached to the salad you try there today, though, because it might not be available tomorrow. “Almost every day it changes,” said Beth James, owner, with Melony Hyzy, of the shop at 2182 Kensington Ave. “Today is pink grapefruit and fennel salad, and apricot couscous. Not your typical things.”

There are standards in her refrigerator and freezer. Duck rillettes and Bolognese sauce are perennials, as part of a mix of gourmet retail, baked goods and a few cheeses. “There will always be pesto and hummus and tapenades, and bourbon bacon jam, and cilantro zucchini soup and ginger carrot soup,” James said.

Sometimes Salt offers house-smoked ribs and chicken wings, or chicken grilled under a brick. Other times it doesn’t, but it might have the roasted chicken Caesar salad, or a quesadilla with roasted turkey, caramelized apples, triple crème Brie cheese, chopped apricots and cranberries.

“It’s different all the time,” James said. “I don’t want to cook the same thing over and over again. I think people just have to have enough faith in me to know what I cook them they’re going to enjoy.”

The goal is “flavorful, simple, unique combinations,” said James. With sandwiches around $8, and salads $6 to $10 a pound, a typical lunch would go for $13-$15, she estimated. There are tables where you can eat, but she won’t be serving you, per se.

James, who is from Toronto, built a house in Ellicottville 25 years ago, and gradually fell in love with Buffalo, she said. She had opened a catering business here, and was looking for a kitchen, when she decided she should just build her own. “Somebody gave me some good advice once,” James said. “Build something that you want to go to every day.”

Closed: Torches, the Kenmore fine dining restaurant, has closed for dinner service. Catering and special events continue. Smoke on the Water, the barbecue-centric restaurant run by Kevin Richert and his brother J.J. in the City of Tonawanda, remains open.

Closed: Route 62 Diner in Lackawanna closed in April.

Closed: August Bistro, on Main Street in Hamburg, announced its closing May 22. Its Facebook page said the restaurant will be “reopening in a new location very soon.” (Hat tip: Dan Meyer.)